


Doux Rêves

by Totalspiffage



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Hallucinations, also mention of polyamory, but who knows, canonically brainwashed character, no happiness for anyone in ch 1 at least, sad women in sad situations, tho not with gerard and lena
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-02 01:23:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8645860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Totalspiffage/pseuds/Totalspiffage
Summary: Widowmaker suffers from the effects of brainwashing and trauma and begins to secretly wish for a reprieve. Meanwhile Lena's accelerator gives her difficulty.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if this is a continuable thing! Just had this lying about and figured I'd toss it up because I have feelings.

The hallucinations were nothing new, shadows and figures sometimes forming into shapes of people she’s known. Today, as most days, it was Gérard, sitting, watching, smiling.

“Amélie, ma chérie.“

Lining up a shot, she breathed out his name and squeezed the trigger. Her target fell. She was not the same woman he called for, but she found it a slight comfort in her droll life.

She had learned not to respond, by now, but sometimes it was tempting.

 _How are your hallucinations, Widowmaker?_ She wondered if Talon had brainwashed the psychiatrist who worked for them, too. She liked to pretend she cared about Widowmaker’s well-being. Widow knew she was just a tool. What else could she do, now?

They only called her by her call sign. She supposed it was for the best. She looked at her skin in the mirror sometimes; cold, wrong, it used to be different. Her frustration at her lack of control had ceded to numbness. Their doing. The image in the mirror would twist and she would close her eyes instead.

_We may need to look at your dosage._

She could hear the voice so clearly. Widowmaker told them nothing. She remembered when they left her, when Gérard’s voice had stopped coming to her. Even Ana’s harsh criticisms of her form were almost welcome. She was never treated harshly at Talon after the experiment was through. As though she might break with any more meddling. A masterpiece, the scientists had said, an installation in the gallery of the world.

She felt nothing. Wasn’t that the opposite of what art was meant to be?

Lena was tougher, a harder one to distinguish reality from fiction. She’d been around back before then, too. A starry-eyed coworker, smitten but polite. She’d been a friend, a good one. Gérard had even encouraged Lena to actually do something about her crush with his full permission, but nothing ever happened. Nowadays, the real Lena’s eyes were much sadder. Still, a younger version haunted her steps, her phantom hands winding around her waist. What could have been, despite everything. Sometimes the imaginary Lena asked her to leave, to come find her and get a flat. They could leave it all behind. A daydream.

She told the psychiatrist about that one, how it had felt so real. They’d adjusted her dosage that time, and she regretted it, missing the giggles and the confusion.

Gérard sat close to her sniper position, smiling. He was blessedly silent, although she could faintly hear the sound of laughter echoing, as if far away. She slid her visor over her eyes, and sure enough his form lacked a heat signature. Reassured, she focused her shot again. You could never tell when the dead weren’t dead these days.

Another target fell, the ice in her bloodstream soothed for now. Lena laughed in her ear, as if she were right there. The Widowmaker sighed.

* * *

 

 

“Need a tune-up, love,” Lena said, her form flickering ever so slightly as she stood before Winston. He gave a small grunt and beckoned her forward, examining the hairline fracture on the casing of her accelerator. She was ghosting again, which wasn’t good.

“Now, what did I say about being careful with this one? I know we’ve had some tough battles, but-,”

“I know, Winston. It’s just regular wear and tear, we just need to figure out how best to keep this all up. No monkey business, I swear.”

Winston glared at her and she gave him a small smile.

“Couldn’t resist, sorry.”

“You’re still making jokes. That tells me how bad it is.”

Lena’s bad habit. Making jokes even (and especially) under extreme pressure. She chuckled a bit, nervously, as the anchor  slipped off and winston’s temporary emergency anchor held her, firing to life from the floor.

The first thing to go was her vision, forms morphing and pulsing before her, lagging and then resuming all too soon. Sounds were sped up, slowed down, and then gone altogether. She focused on her breathing, closing her eyes as the terror of being trapped threatened to take her.

 _Happy things_ , her brain reminded her, as she felt herself pop in and out of being.

There was a picture on the wall of her room. She could barely manage to look at it anymore, but it brought back good memories of better days.

Amélie was next to her, a small smile on her face as she kissed Lena’s cheek. Lena’s cheeks were rosy from the wine at the small Overwatch get-together. Gérard had taken it, and sent it to Lena’s phone the next morning, the day before her first- and only- slipstream flight. He wished her good luck, and to tell Amélie her feelings if she made it back safely.

She’d never seen her friends again, but Lena still had that night. Still held onto it in her dreams.

_I should have told her then. I wish I had._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Widowmaker's conditioning is breaking which should be good, except for the repercussions on her own mind.

 

“What do you feel when I show you his face?”

Her late husband was on the screen again, in her usual pre-combat evaluation. It had lasted for an entire day, to check for cracks in her conditioning. Staring at his broken form always took a toll on her- one she could not disclose. Her heart clenched, but she smiled coldly, “Nothing.”

The psychologist took a note and nodded, “Good, you’ll be sent out on a mission with operatives Reaper and Sombra in a week. You are free to go.”

“ _Merci,_ ” she said, rising. She made it all the way down the corridor and out of the medical wing of their current base before she found a blind spot to the cameras and blinked, tears falling unbidden down her cheeks. It took only a moment for her to collect herself before continuing on her way.

The smell of ashes was the first clue she was not alone.

“Reaper,” she said aloud, watching him materialize from a vent, “A surprise, as always.”

“ _How are you,_ Widowmaker?” He greeted, speaking in her native tongue. HIs voice was a deep growl, a ghostly reverb haunting his speech. It had become somewhat of a strange comfort, even if the specter it belonged to was irritating at times. His french was surprisingly good, as was any language he chose to study- out of necessity, she imagined.

She answered, also in french, “ _Alive, remarkably.”_

He chuckled, smoke curling from under his mask.

“Take that ridiculous mask off, you are no more monstrous than I am,” she scoffed, walking past him without a look. She made for his room (spartan, unfurnished aside from weapons and a single cot) and patiently waited as he opened the door.

Widowmaker huffed and sat on his cot, putting her feet up and glancing up at him while he closed the door and slipped his mask off. His skin was a mottled dark grey, smoke curled off his skin as his skin decayed and repaired all at once. He was a monster, just as she was, and though the two did not agree on much at all, they managed. Reaper's motivations were still muddled to her. He went along with Talon for something, but he was getting sentimental in his old age. Sentimental  _and_ angry. It was a volatile combination.

Still, they worked together, and he watched her back from time to time. 

“Bad session, today, huh?” He leaned against a canister of ammunition and looked at her expectantly.

“I can manage bad sessions without supervision.”

He rolled his eyes, “I wasn’t there the whole time.”

“And what would you do if there was an incident, hm? If my mind broke and I was sent to be reconditioned?” Widowmaker’s tone grew harsh, “They would know if you broke me out of their care, Gabriel, and you know how much they value their weapon. You would lose any leverage you have over Talon in an instant.” The argument was solid, he needed Talon's funds, their resources, he had no one else to turn to for his investigation (and subsequent revenge murders). He needed their doctors, their research, anything to try and cure his condition or at least give him a proper death. Widowmaker doubted they'd kill one of their best agents, so the former it was.

The use of his name stilled his tongue, and for a moment he was silent, “I’m not saying I would have broken you out. It’s easier to fix the doctors, bribe the reconditioning team…”

“I’m a killer and so are you. You have been playing the villain so well, Gabriel, it would be a shame for you to relapse into a hero, wouldn’t it?”

There was silence for a few moments before Gabriel’s answer, “Then is it really heroic to save a killer, Amélie?”

She thought for a second, hating the way he spoke her former name, before leaning back and looking away, “I suppose not. And for god’s sake come out, Sombra, we both know you’re here.”

There was a flash as Sombra uncloaked in the middle of the room, “Aren’t we in a great mood today?”

“Your sarcasm is as appreciated as your eavesdropping, Sombra,” Gabriel said, by way of greeting, “At least you’re better at it than McCree was.”

“You talk about him way too much, Gabe. No wonder he’s not on your list,” Sombra teased, earning a growl from the wraith. Widowmaker said nothing, but was momentarily distracted by a fleeting hallucination. For a moment, Lena's hand was on hers, a gentle voice in her ear- her husband's? She relaxed and lost herself for just a moment too long.

“Getting worse, huh? Hate to say this, but you need something, Your miss rate’s gone up a lot and they’re talking, you know.” Sombra brought holovids up idly, studying them in midair before hastily typing something.

It wasn’t as though Widowmaker didn’t trust Gabriel and Sombra. They both had proven themselves disloyal to Talon’s true interests at times. She just wasn’t sure she could rely on them as an exit strategy.

 _Come on, love, come home._ Words, whispered too long ago, replayed vividly in her ear.

“Hey. You still with us?” Gabriel asked. She wondered why he bothered to care about some killer he worked with. Perhaps some tie to who she used to be, but she could barely remember that part of her life.

“I couldn’t get out if I wanted. What’s the point? I should let them recondition me.”

The admission felt sour, contrary to what every cell in her body wanted. More days in sensory deprivation, isolation, the fabricated vids, the piercing screech of the sirens until she was still, silent and deadly. Inside, she could hear her own screams echoing, as if far away. Sombra looked at her, her brow furrowed, but she said nothing, for once. Widowmaker cursed as more voices that weren’t present swallowed her whole. Her throat burned as though she wanted to cry but the tears did not come.

Music swelled, albeit softly, as Sombra brought something up on her interface. Swan Lake. She’d danced to it so long ago. Focusing on the steps and movements in her head brought her back for a moment. She sat up as the music continued, Gabriel and Sombra watching her closely.

Her two colleagues met eyes as she focused.

“May be time to do something,” Gabriel drawled. Sombra made a noise of agreement.

Widowmaker didn’t have it in her to argue. The music continued on. She chanced a glance at Sombra’s little screen, seeing an image of herself dancing to the music so long ago, in another life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like, Gabriel cares about her here for a reason, I promise he's still an angry boy. Had a scene explaining a bit into why but trashed it? Sombra's just trying to get some info she can use, but she's also low on friends, and if you're stuck with people long enough, hey you start to give a shit.
> 
> Also I just like team talon.
> 
> Again, just writing for funsies, don't know when/if I'll update again.


End file.
